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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Dr. Sasha Blaskovich, Owner and Clinical Director of the Whiplash & Injury Clinic
00:13:08
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by somebody who is a brilliant chiropractor who is the owner and clinical director of a clinic called the Whiplash and Injury Clinic, Also does a lot of work on instability and cervical instability. We're joined today by Dr. Sasha Blaskovich. Dr. Blaskovich, take a moment, if you could, and tell us about yourself and your background in your practice.
- [00:32]
B
Certainly. So my background as far as getting into this line of work dates back to when I was playing college football and I sustained what was at that point in time deemed a concussion. And that type of injury, that type of presentation is still to this day deemed as a concussion. But what I discovered on my own, thankfully, after having gone to chiropractic school and learned a lot more about anatomy, physiology, neurology, radiology, et cetera, is that I actually sustained permanent ligament injuries or tears in my upper neck, akin to what would be, you know, equal to an ACL injury in the knee, whereby my upper neck became unstable as a result of that, and conversely to the knee, where the knee just will wear down over time, and you might, you know, eventually need a knee replacement with a severe ACL injury. This particular region of the spine in the upper neck is what's supposed to protect the brainstem from any irritation or any contact, but allow for a subsequent amount of mobility so that you can turn your head, et cetera. But when this injury occurs and the ligaments get stretched and damaged, now all of a sudden, there's too much movement in the upper neck, which then results to a sort of chronic and recurrent irritation of the brainstem as a result of that excessive movement of those upper two neck bones, resulting in sort of permanent concussive symptom presentations where, you know, people's, you know, decades, if not their entire life after that is spent searching for answers as to why they continue to have the headaches, the dizziness, the nausea, the blurry vision, the forgetfulness, the irritability, the heart palpitations, the temperature control issues, the urinary issues, the digestive issues, and everything and anything that could be connected to the vagus nerve being improperly stimulated or irritated, which, again, trickles back to this upper cervical instability and how that affects the brainstem and even fluid dynamics. And so that's kind of what I've focused my career on, is because that was my epiphany moment and discovery moment, where I discovered what was actually wrong with me, as opposed to the. The usual belief that there's something, you know, microscopic wrong inside the brain. And that's why everything is glitching the way it is. And eventually, you know, someone might figure out how to figure out how to get, you know, relief from that. And thankfully, I've been able to get significant relief from what I've done to the muscles in my upper neck, which then try to support that instability and remove some of that irritation on the brainstem. And it's been quite, you know, eye opening as far as for myself and also thousands of patients from all around the world with very similar presentations, similar injuries that have been helped at least gain an understanding of what's going on and get some direction as a result of this.
- [03:16]
A
Thank you. Take a moment and tell us about what trends you're watching in concussion care in healthcare today. What are the things you're watching most closely today?
- [03:27]
B
Well, what I'm noticing, and this is something I've been preaching about for at least 20, 25 years, is that I find it physiologically hard, if not almost impossible to agree or allow myself to believe that you can have an isolated head injury or an isolated neck injury without the one affecting the other. And so this is starting to become more and more discussed, and more and more physicians are seeing that and starting to discuss it. And that's the notion that it's the neck and head are connected in traumatic events, whereby you can expect that one to not be affected and the other to be affected. So there's always an overlap between true head injury or concussion, if you will, and true whiplash, which would be neck injury. And so those two combined. And that's what kind of prompted me, back in, I believe, 2019, to co author a book or publish a book that's called Dr. B's Concussion Breakthrough. And that was kind of my breakthrough is the notion that my head injury was not truly my head injury, it was my neck injury masquerading as a head problem. And so that trend is something I've been watching, is that it's getting a lot more attention. That concept of the head and neck go paired together, and when you have a traumatic event, they should both be evaluated for damage so that you can properly triage a person and their symptoms from that moment forward.
- [04:52]
A
Fantastic. And tell us about the book a little bit. And then I'm going to ask you, you were a college football quarterback. Do you still follow football today? And then I'm going to ask you if the Chicago Bears will ever have a great quarterback, but that's a different question. But first, tell us about the book, then I need to talk to you about football because I am struggling as a Chicago Bears fan to think if we'll ever have a good quarterback.
- [05:13]
B
Right. Well, the book again. So the whole notion of that was one of my patients who is a hockey player, he came to me as a referral from his father because his father said, I got this son who's had, you know, 10 or 12 concussions, and sometimes he's so bad that he's crawling around on the ground because he's. If he tries to go upright, he's gonna throw up, and he just can't be upright. And so he said, maybe you can check him out. And I said, sure. So his son came in, very techie, young man. And we did initial consultation. I found that it was necessary that we did a motion X ray. And that's the gold standard for discerning this upper cervical instability. So we did a motion X ray on him, discerned that he did indeed have upper cervical instability. And I proceeded to treat him a few times, and he had some dramatic results from me treating his muscles that were disengaged as a result of his chronic instability. And they finally engaged and started supporting his instability. And he had a really good period and still is doing a lot better as a result of that. And he said, you need to tell people about this. And I said, yeah, it's on my bucket list. He goes, you should write a book. I said, yep, it's on my bucket list. And then he said, what about if I helped you? And I said, okay, what do you mean? He said, what about if I came here every Wednesday at 6am and did a sort of Q A interview, and we videotaped it and audio taped it and we turned it into a book. And I said, sure. And I didn't expect, you know, a millennial 24, 25 year old to, you know, stick to their word. But sure enough, he did every. Every Wednesday, 6:00am he was there. And we spent a good, you know, one and a half, two hours doing this recording, and then we turned it into a book. And so the book tie ties into the. Basically the connection of the head and neck and injury. And then secondarily what he's done in his personal life to mitigate some of the symptoms. So little tools and ticks and trips, tricks and tips that he's done to help him, in addition to the ones that I've done myself to gain some ground on this problem, if you will. You know, things from mindfulness, breathing exercises, water, proper, proper Hydration, supplementation, you know, many things, probably 12 or 13 different things in there between the both of us that we've found helpful for us. And so those are freely available for people who read the book to, you know, implement in their own lives and hopefully get some gain, some ground on this. And so that's kind of what led to that book. And, and, and the whole notion of the book was to sort of put it out there that the head and neck are connected in these traumas and that you can't take the one without the other and then tying back into your quarterback question. Oddly enough, Jim Harbaugh is one of the, you know, poster children of this phenomena. This notion that the head and neck are connected, as he was one of the individuals that the man who invented MRI, and his name was Dr. Raymond Domadian in New York, assessed Jim harbaugh for what Dr. Damadian termed craniocervical syndrome. And that was where he believed that some of the flow through the upper neck or the brainstem region was being affected because of a simple malposition of the top neck bone or the atlas, and that that would affect cerebrospinal fluid flow. And, and they did that specialized MRI with Jim Harbaugh found that he did indeed have restricted cerebral spinal fluid flow because he was suffering from, you know, post concussive stuff for many, many years. And they had him adjusted by a chiropractor who only focuses on the upper upper bone or the atlas. And then Jim Harbaugh had a miraculous reduction in symptoms for, you know, a significant amount of time. And he had to obviously go back for a repeat treatment and realignments. But so that's, that's a prime example of Chicago Bear quarterback that, you know, I guess one that's known, I guess, for that, from that era that suffered this exact same problem. And, you know, with him, like I said, they did the alignment, and I think there's more to it than that. You know, if someone would work on his muscles, I think he'd gain even better relief than just aligning.
- [09:00]
A
No, that's simply remarkable, actually. And it doesn't answer the question as to whether the Bears quarterbacks can play football, but at least they could be fixed. So that's good. No, say that, chuck. Thank you, Dr. Blaskovich. At least, you know, we'll see how that goes. Good, good, good, good. I guess your point is so well taken. If the Bears have a horrendous offensive line, there is more and more need for chiropractic work. Neurosurgery work, concussion work, and more. So I guess it all does tie together the bears and concussion protocols. What are you most focused on and excited about this year? Where are you most focused and excited, Dr. Baskovich?
- [09:40]
B
Just the expansion of this whole. Whole concept. And there's more and more physicians around the world and more and more therapists around the world that are starting to think differently and kind of alter their mindset as to accepting the notion that there's a possibility that some of these patients that they've been concussively triaging actually have upper cervical neck injuries as opposed to just concussive problems. And it's. It's having a really, you know, very dramatic positive effect on that patient group and just the open openness and. And acceptance. So this thing that I've been talking about for, you know, decades is now finally starting to catch some. Some steam, and hopefully it'll continue going that way as more and more doctors have their own epiphany moments and start, you know, looking into this, because I think it'll. It'll reduce the morbidity of a lot of patients faster than it has historically. Because I think that in a lot of cases, physicians and therapists have, myself included, initially been barking up the wrong tree and not getting the results that they were hoping to get, but not having another tree to bark up. And so I think this is a wonderful turning point in history where they're seeing that there's another tree beside there that they should, you know, climb and see if there's anything up there. And they're actually starting to proactively do that. So that's very exciting.
- [10:57]
A
No, I think your point is so well taken. We see so much this in different areas of medicine. I remember my mom some time ago having her knee replaced, and turned out it really wasn't the knee, it was the hip that was causing the trouble. I mean, you see so much of these things where things are so interconnected, and to find the right solution requires sometimes thinking just one bit out of the box to make things work. I couldn't agree with you more, Dr. Blazkowicz. Dr. Blazkowicz, where can people find out more about you and learn more about your practice for people that would like to follow up?
- [11:29]
B
Sure.
- [11:29]
A
The.
- [11:31]
B
There's two websites that are probably the or three that are the most sort of relevant to this. One would be whiplash clinic.com and that is my clinical practice where I physically see patients. The second would be Dr. Blaskovich dot com. So that's drblaskovich dot com and that's where patients from all around the world can virtually connect with me. And we can look at, you know, obtaining their imaging, their MRIs, their CT scans, etc, and assessing those for nuances that would suggest that they have this problem. And then I would, you know, make a zoom call with them and explain the images and share that with them and try to guide them as best I could with involving some of their local therapists and doctors who they already see to sort of get engaged in this mindset or this thought process to assess them. And then the third one that explains this gold standard imaging that actually is the, is the gold standard for determining whether or not somebody does have upper cervical instability is MotionXray CA. So that's a Canadian website. So MotionXray CA. And that's what will show people basically what the technology is and what its intent is and what it can discern and how it's relevant. And so those three websites, I think, are probably the most informative for those types of demographics of patients.
- [12:49]
A
Dr. Vlasimitz, just fantastic. Congratulations on all that you've done. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. What a pleasure to visit with you. And thank you to our wonderful producer Chanel Bunger as well. Thank you very, very much.
- [13:03]
B
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.